Optical communication is a communication mode in which optical waves are transmission media. As the costs for an optical fiber and an optical module (Optical module) decrease, optical communication is increasingly widely used in data transmission. An optical module is generally formed by an optoelectronic component, a functional circuit, an optical interface, and so on. The optoelectronic component includes two parts: transmit and receive. The function of the transmit part is to: after processing, through an internal driver chip, of electric signals input at a certain code rate, drive a semiconductor laser device (LD) or a light-emitting diode (LED) to transmit modulated optical signals at the corresponding rate. An optical power automatic control circuit is built in the transmit part to stabilize the power of the output optical signals. The function of the receive part is to: convert, through an optical detection diode, optical signals input at a certain code rate into electric signals, and then output electric signals at the corresponding code rate through a preamplifier. In addition, as the implemented functions are complicated, the optical module is an apparatus with large power consumption among optical communication devices.
To reduce the power consumption of an optical communication device, a method is provided in the prior art where a monitoring module is established in the optical communication device, and the monitoring module shuts down the optical module when detecting that the optical module has no optical signal input or output, thereby reducing the power consumption of the optical communication device. Because the optical module is shut down, when signals need to be transmitted to or received from the peer device again, the optical module cannot immediately set up a connection with the peer device, affecting communication real time.